Matrikon OPC Funnel acts as an "intermediary" between multiple OPC clients and multiple OPC servers. Its main purpose is to centralize and manage OPC communications, helping to resolve issues related to compatibility, performance, and security.
What is it used for?
Unifying multiple OPC servers: It allows several OPC servers to appear as one for the clients, simplifying client-side configuration and connection.
Filtering and controlling data access: You can configure which data (tags) OPC clients can view or use. This is ideal for security or when not all data is relevant to every user.
Improving performance: It reduces the communication load between many clients and servers by centralizing the connections.
Transforming data: It can modify or adapt data before delivering it to the client, useful when formats are not compatible between client and server.
Facilitating DCOM connections: It helps mitigate common configuration and security issues that occur with Classic OPC (DCOM-based) connections.
The first step in configuring Matrikon OPC Funnel is to create a node that communicates with an OPC server. To do this, navigate to the **OPC Node Configuration** option, right-click, and select **Server Node** to configure the connection with an OPC DA server. This action will enable the node to integrate with the OPC server and configure the necessary communication parameters.
After this, a new panel will open where you will configure the communication with the OPC DA server. You can assign a name in the Name field. Below, you will find a button labeled Browse OPC Servers. Clicking this button will initiate a search for the OPC DA servers available on your PC.
In this new panel, you will see a list of available OPC servers. Select one from the list— for this exercise, choose Matrikon.OPC.Simulation.1.
You can leave the default configuration as is; however, if you need to make any modifications, we recommend referring to the Matrikon OPC Funnel user manual for guidance.
Finally, click the Create button to complete the Server Node configuration.
After this step, you can use an OPC client to read data through the Funnel by referencing the Server Node name.
If you prefer not to use the Server Node, you can create Alias tags directly within Matrikon OPC Funnel. To do this, navigate to **Advanced Options** in the Funnel panel, and then go to **Alias Configuration**. In this section, you can create a tag and map it to an existing tag from the Server Node.
Once the Alias tag is configured, you can read it using an OPC client, such as the Matrikon OPC Explorer.
Created By JF
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